Page 45 of Bought By Sin

It’s different.

They are different.

I followed Lev to his car and realized that he was just different. And probably just as stubborn as I could be. He got behind the wheel, and I climbed into the passenger seat.

As soon as pulled away, he blurted, “Do I still have anything on my face?”

I gawked at him again. “No!” Embarrassment filled me with the fact that a remnant of what he’d done to me could be visible. “I checked.”

“Alexei said I had something on my face.” He turned, lifting his chin and showing me, but I saw nothing.

Nothing but a sexy man who was almost being disarmingly goofy and playful.

“I think he was saying it just to fuck with me. Typical older brother stuff.”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know how that works.”

“Only child?”

I nodded. “Only child to sell.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You seem to fit in well with my brother and cousins, though.”

I dipped my chin and held in a growl of frustration. “Lev, I’m not just any other employee to fit in with any of you.”

“You fit wrapped around my dick last night.”

I pressed my lips shut and damned the spike of arousal at his candid reminder. I had. He fit well in me. “I’m not an employee of my own will.” Every time he acted like he had forgotten that, it was a blade twisting in my heart. I still wanted to be free. To choose my fate for once.

He had nothing to say about that. I dared him to deny it. When he opened his cocky mouth again, several long minutes later as he returned to his house, I braced for another line of defense that he’d spout. “Say something.”

I rolled my eyes since he couldn’t see. If I asked him to let me go free, his answer would be no, and that was all I wanted to ask or say.

But he was deferring to me. He wanted me to stay engaged with him, and I realized that sticking with the silent treatment and acting like he was like any other man who’d owned me wasn’t fair. Because he wasn’t. The visceral need he’d let me witness when he told me that he wanted a taste of me for his birthday put him in a league of his own.

It wouldn’t kill me to see him as more of… well, I didn’t know what. But he had to trust me and value me if he wanted to personally select me to go on this mission with him tonight.

“Who is Gregori?” I asked at last. That was something I’d been wondering about. I still felt like I was the outsider who didn’t belong, sitting with the Volkov leaders, but I wasn’t going to ask not to be there. Maybe I’d learn something that would enable me to escape.

I winced.

I hadn’t really been focusing on that much lately, too busy learning and improving my skills and fitness. Too busy sleeping well and having my basic needs met.

Having my sexual needs met, too.

I winced again while I waited for him to answer. It seemed that my question touched on a sensitive topic.

How am I supposed to know that, though? It was clear from that meeting that Gregori and this Yusef guy were enemies of the Volkovs, but I hadn’t been privy to any specialized intel yet. Those names meant nothing to me from my time as the Cartels’ runner.

“I’ve never heard of him before,” I added, in case that took the sting out of my asking that.

He let out a deep breath. Without taking his attention off the road as he pulled into his driveway, he said, with reluctance, “Gregori is an enemy of the family. He was once a trusted and close member and confidante, but he betrayed us all. He represents a global network that he has been forming for many years, all to use against us and attack us.”

I wasn’t new to this lifestyle. I’d been owned by Cartels versus a Bratva, but I was no stranger to this world of violence. Enemies would be waiting for all of them at any given time.

“Is that what that intruder was about at Adrik’s house? When I noticed someone sneaking close?”

“No. That was actually just a random moron who tried to break in.”